CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: A PROBABLE HISTORY OF THE SONTARANS

Taking a brief break from charting the First Doctor's Progression to look at a chronological arrangement of all stories involving those adorable potato-headed Sontarans. As there are considerably less stories involving them, this shouldn't go on as long as my Dalek history did! 

BEFORE WE ACTUALLY SEE THEM ON THE SHOW...

In a distant galaxy, a species of war-like beings developed on the planet Sontar. Since their earliest days, these creatures were in love with conquest. Before they discovered interstellar travel, they were content to attempt to dominate each other. Wars were constantly erupting within their society.

Like Earth, the varied climate of Sontar created different races. Sontarans that inhabited the colder regions of the planet had one type of appearance. Whereas the denizens of warmer climes looked another way. These minor variations, of course, provided enough reason for these races to hate each other and battle endlessly.

As they warred against each other, the Sontarans were still able develop technology among all this bloodshed. They eventually managed to begin travelling in space. As they did, their society re-shaped itself. They discovered other life forms and immediately decreed them inferior. They would need to be conquered and enslaved. This was a task that required the entire planet to unify itself. Racial differences were cast aside and the Sontarans went out into the universe to plunder it.

For quite some time, this went well for them. But, eventually, they encountered an equally-xenophobic race that were making their way through the galaxy on an invasion campaign of their own. The Rutans provided a challenge that was almost too great for the mighty Sontarans. The two warrior races began to clash.


THE SONTARANS WE SEE TODAY

Much to the shock of the Sontarans, the Rutans were actually able to push them back in their advance upon the Universe. This Host of amorphous jelly-fish like creatures proved not only difficult to kill, but also quite lethal in the way they attacked. The Sontarans were forced to retreat against their might.

And so, genetics became the great obsession for the Sontaran military scientists. The species re-designed itself. Taking after their enemy, they became creatures that fed off pure energy to survive rather than consumption of food. They did this by developing a probic vent in the back of the neck to use as a feedline for the energy. This also became known as a Sontaran's only weakness. Their genetically-modified bodies and space armour was so resilient, that they were impervious to most forms of attack.

But these genetic improvements were not enough. Sheer weight of numbers was the only way to crush the Rutan Host. In combat, it would take dozens of Sontarans just to down one Rutan. Having made the perfect warrior's body, Sontaran scientists then went on to master the cloning process. Millions of Sontarans could be hatched on a regular basis and programmed from an early age to become ruthless warriors dedicated to the destruction of the enemy. We see slight variations to those clones (ie: Sontarans in Two Doctors seem considerably taller), of course, because there were different races on Sontar. Each race got their own clone batch.

At last, the Sontarans were able to pose a legitimate threat to their foes. Their campaigns began to advance again.The war between the Sontarans and the Rutans could begin in deadly earnest.

THE CONUNDRUM OF INVASION OF TIME

Up until Series 4 of the New Series, placing The Invasion of Time in this timeline was pretty simple. It seemed to me that this would be the final story in their chronology. Which made sense. The Sontarans would have to be at their greatest, most advanced stage to penetrate that Transduction Shield and conquer the Panopticon. It helped that this is one of the few Sontaran stories that doesn't mention the Rutans. In my imagination, it signified that they had finally beaten their greatest enemy and could move on to bigger and better things like the conquest of Gallifrey. Again, this made me believe that this must have taken place at the end of all the other Sontaran stories we've seen.

But then we get The Sontaran Stratagem - which takes place sometime around 2008. General Staal laments toward the end of the episode of how the Sontarans were not allowed to participate in the Time Wars. Up until that moment, I liked to believe that the Time Wars took place in the far-flung future so that Invasion of Time could still fit my version of Sontaran history. Sometime after the events of Sontaran Experiment the Sontarans lead an aggravated assault on Gallifrey. But Staal's complaint indicates that the Time Wars probably happened in the 2000s. I suppose we could set up all kinds of timey whimey arguments that would still support my initial view. These are time-travelling Sontarans that have come back to the past. Or the Time Wars are in their own special time zone. Or Invasion of Time actually took place in an alternative reality where the Time Wars never happened. There's lots of directions we can take this in. But I prefer to just say that Invasion of Time takes place in a different point of Sontaran history than I had previously envisioned.

So now, I put Invasion of Time at the beginning of the timeline. At some point during their war against the Rutans, the Sontarans are winning and can start concentrating on side-campaigns. Seeing the tactical advantage that time travel could afford them, they begin experiments in the Fourth Dimension. This leads them to discovering the existence of the Time Lords. Sontaran mentality being what it is, the decision is made to devise a way to invade Gallifrey. A false alliance with the Vardans is forged and their plans are set in motion. The Invasion of Time takes place.

FIRST CONTACT WITH EARTH

A specific date for Invasion of Time is difficult to determine - but we're assuming it takes place, at least, a short while before the next story in their timeline: The Time Warrior.

Linx is in possession of an osmic projector - a sort of primitive time scoop with limited range. Perhaps the Sontarans managed to steal some of the secrets of the Time Lords during their short-lived occupation. Or, perhaps, Sontaran scientists made these discoveries on their own. Either way, Sontarans are now capable of short jumps through time.

There is no indication that it's time travel that brought Linx to Irongron's castle sometime during the 1200s so we have to assume that this is the proper era in which this tale takes place. Linx does talk to the Doctor about the little knowledge he has about Time Lord society. He doesn't have much good to say about them. According to the data he's been given, they are not even worth being conquered. We can safely assume this was propaganda created to cover up a defeat. It also gets Invasion to fit a bit more nicely at the beginning of this timescale.

Fortunately for Earth, the Sontarans see no real use for this world. Linx's crashlanding was a fluke. The strange little blue/green planet is too far out of the way of the main war. Of course, seven-or-so centuries later, a Rutan scout would be sent to investigate this part of the galaxy and have its efforts thwarted by the Doctor, too.


THE WEAKENING OF THE SONTARAN STRAIN

Sometime between The Time Warrior and Horror of Fang Rock, the Rutans make their own technological strides to combat the advantages that their enemies were holding over them. They don't seem to discover time travel but they become masters at shapeshifting. This ability to perfectly duplicate other life forms changes the tides of battle. The Sontarans are losing again. They need to take drastic steps to increase their numbers even more. Those super-resilient bodies are intentionally weakened so that larger batches of warriors can be hatched. They are not told, of course, that they are genetically inferior but we see evidence of greater vulnerability during the next few stories.

Deciding the osmic projector is not enough, the Sontarans decide they need to enhance their time travel abilities. They strike an uneasy alliance with Dastari and Chessene from Space Station Chimera to steal the Kartz/Reimer time travel module. They also abduct a Time Lord (who turns out to be the Doctor) to discover where his Rassilon Imprimature lies in his genetic code. Their operations lead them to Earth in 1984. The events of The Two Doctors take place. Like The Time Warrior, there is no implication of time travel so we can assume this is the proper year in which this adventure transpires. It is here where we see the first evidence of weaker Sontarans. They now seem to be vulnerable to coronic acid. Jamie's knife also seems to be capable of doing some legitimate harm to Group Marshal Stike. Information stated about Sontarans in previous stories insinuate that they are, generally, invulnerable to such attacks. That the probic vent is the only way to take them down (or a significantly large explosion). But this doesn't seem to be the case, anymore. Although, Stike does seem to recover from his knife wound fairly quickly. So this particular generation of Sontaran is still reasonably strong.

Over the next few decades, though, the gene-strain is diluted even further to swell their numbers. The Sontarans that attempt to convert Earth into a clone hatchery in 2008(ish) are now even vulnerable to a mere bullet. We have never seen such weak Sontarans as we do in The Sontaran Stratagem/Poison Sky. I like to think that there's a legitimate reason for this inconsistency. Which is why I came up with my silly weakening of the gene strain theory.


NEXT CONTACT WITH EARTH

And now we must jump forward a considerable amount of time to The Sontaran Experiment. Dating this particular story can be a bit tricky. It takes place sometime after all the solar flare trouble that Earth experiences in the 30th Century that gets discussed in stories like Ark In Space and Beast Below. But it needs to occur before we see the Earth that is, once more, thriving in the 40th Century in stories like The Dalek Masterplan.

A general impression is given that the sleepers on Nerva Beacon were meant to stay in hibernation for 5 000 years. The Doctor claims they've overslept by a few thousand years due to Wiirn sabotage. But I would venture that these estimates are off. All of this happened in centuries rather than millennia. So let's say Sontaran Experiment takes place sometime in the 38th Century. That gives enough time for the planet to re-colonize and show real political strength as Mavic Chen's dastardly schemes start hatching.

While the Sontarans learnt a bit about humans way back in the late 20th/early 21st Century, that knowledge has been intentionally lost. Again, Sontaran propaganda always ascertains that defeats were forgotten. But, once more, it's become strategically-sound to investigate humanity's corner of the universe. So Field Major Styre is sent off to assess humans and uncover their weaknesses.

Why does Styre have five fingers while all other Sontarans have three? Sontaran scientists are always assigned five fingers at their hatching so they can better handle delicate scientific apparatus.


STRAX!!

Although most of his stories take place on 18th Century Earth, Strax becomes Madame Vastra's butler through a convenient trip in time shortly after A Good Man Goes To War. Our favorite bumbling Sontaran really hails from the 41st Century. The first time we see him, Moff is nice enough to display that it is the Year 4037. We must assume that, even without Styre's report, the war with Earth and its associated colonies eventually proceeds. Strax's penance at the Battle of Zaruthrstra seems to be a definite conflict between Sontarans and humans. Interestingly enough, Sontaran nurses appear to be completely neutral on the field of battle. Willing to help either side with their medical needs.

After being transported to Demon's Run, Strax is killed and then resurrected. We're still not entirely sure how. Perhaps some kind of cloning trick that actually seems to downgrade him, slightly. Like taking a photocopy of a photocopy. But all his adventures in Victorian London that we see in The Snowmen, The Crimson Horror, The Name of the Doctor and Deep Breath are the result of a trip through time. Strax really comes from one of the latest points in the Sontaran timeline.

It may be entirely possible that the Sontaran gene-pool has, once again, been compromised. Strax is seen to be rendered unconscious in a bar brawl during Name of the Doctor by a blow to the front of his face by a shovel rather than to the probic vent (it's difficult to ascertain - given the fact that the attack is filmed as a pov shot). This weakness, however, might also be due to whatever was done to him at his resurrection. We can't be sure...


NEW SERIES CAMEOS

We see the Sontarans making a few brief cameos in the New Series along with a Rogue's Gallery of other recurring villains. Since the Daleks were there too, I've mapped out the timeline of those appearances during my post on their history. Putting the Sontarans into that timeline won't be difficult.

While there's no real indication of an exact date, I estimate that the Alliance to seal the Doctor in the Box of Pandorica must have happened sometime after the 40th Century. As I explained in my summary of Dalek History, the various aliens are from the future but they travel back in time to Stonehenge in 102 AD. More than likely, the Daleks set up some huge time corridor to get them all there. The Sontarans, with their own knowledge of time travel, may have assisted. Or, proud warriors that they are, they may have gotten there on their own.

Finally, there's the blockade around Trenzalore in Time of the Doctor. Again, no real date can be given but I estimate that it takes place sometime after the events of Pandorica Opens/Big Bang. I could go into detail about about how the events line up but it's not particularly efficient to re-state it here when there's a previous post that explains it all. I'll post a link at the bottom if you want something more thorough that explains the order of things.


All righty, then. Sontaran History charted. We'll deal with other recurring baddies in future posts. There's still quite a few of them to sort out. Oh yeah, here's that link to Dalek History that explains that last section a bit better:

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/07/chronologies-and-timelines-episode-5-of.html

ANALYTICAL: PROGRESSIVE DOCTORS 2: THE FIRST DOCTOR - PART 1

We return you, now, to our Progressive Doctors Series: an examination of incarnations of the Doctor that go through significant character growth.  Our first episode looked at the Doctor's most current body. Now, we go all the way back to the beginning. 

There are some basic "rules" as to what qualifies as a truly Progressive Doctor. Here's a link to the first part where those rules are contained therein.

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/02/analytical-progressive-doctors-part-1.html

I should also note that the First Doctor is, without a doubt, the most Progressive of them all. It's going to take two parts to cover everything properly. 


PROGRESSIVE DOCTORS: PART 2

THE ORIGINAL, YOU MIGHT SAY

As "clunky" and dated as those first few seasons of Doctor Who look, I treasure them (and, of course, seethe in anger over the number of episodes that were deleted). While there have been many tales of Bill Hartnell being not particularly easy to get along with, we can see that this role meant the world to him. After many years of being typecast in some very unchallenging material, he was finally given something with some real meat. And he took that bull by the horns as he portrayed this mysterious character who captured the imaginations of the British public. Every second that he is on the screen - he is giving it his all.

At the same time, though, a production team is offering their own one-hundred-and-ten percent effort to the project. It's like everyone knows they have something special on their hands. In truth, no one actually had the faintest glimmer that the show would last as long as it has . But they're making it as if, someday, it will have the legacy it currently possesses. And it's a beautiful thing to see.

One of the best ways in which we see these ideologies reflected is in the character of the Doctor, himself. While he is, now, commonly referred to as "The First Doctor" - back then, no one knew Hartnell would be turning into Pat Troughton after a few seasons. So, in his actual era, he was just The Doctor. A time traveler we knew little or nothing about. The actor and the various production teams that he worked with took it upon themselves' to put some serious concentration into the development of the character. As the Doctor traversed the Vortex, he went on an enormous personal journey, too. In fact, no other incarnation has gone through as much character growth as the original has.

It would be safe to say that no other Doctor is as Progressive as the First.

STREAMS

There is such a high abundance of that character growth in the Hartnell Era that it would be immensely difficult and convoluted to try to chart it all at once (I still seriously considered it - just to try to show off my "chops" as a writer). In order to make it easier to analyze, I've divided this essay into two specific "Streams". We'll follow two succinct character traits that develop the most prominently over the course of three-seasons-and-then-some period that the First Doctor exists in. It will just make the whole Progression easier to view and understand.

With both of these streams, I will try to illustrate key points where that trait underwent some serious expansion. As usual, there will be times when these turning points were influenced by external factors. While, on other occasions, these emotional growth spurts were the result of an internal decision made on the Doctor's behalf.

But before we get to the streams, let's look at the First Doctor's starting point:

STARTING POINT

At the very beginning, the Doctor was far from likeable. He was, in fact, a legitimate anti-hero. It seems almost odd that it's his name in the title sequence. Of the four main characters featured in An Unearthly Child, the Doctor is the least accessible. Perhaps, even, the least interesting. Certainly the least charming.

Of course, the sequence that best shows us just how rotten of a fellow the Doctor is occurs in Episode Three of his first adventure. Lumbered with the inconvenience of an injured caveman that he does not want to help because it will slow down his escape, the Doctor actually appears to be making a move to kill him. That's the sort of fellow he is back when we first meet him. It's hard to believe he would ever be this way - given how high-principled and genuinely good-hearted he is, these days. But that's how he started.

His callousness doesn't stop, there. In the next story, he campaigns to get a race of peace-loving people to fight on his behalf to recover his fluid link. In the story after that, he is ready to just fling Ian and Barbara out of the TARDIS into what appears to be a fairly hostile environment.

Basically, in his first few stories, he is just not a pleasant man .

Yes, there do seem to be hints of a better person somewhere beneath it all. In many ways, he seems to side with what is right. Given that he has a ship that can take him anywhere in Time and Space, he could be up to far more malicious things than just exploring. But this man who would, someday, champion the cause of good against the most oppressive of evils does not seem the slightest bit nice. It's hard to believe he will be any sort of hero at all. At least, not at this stage of the game.

STREAM 1: THE MORAL COMPASS

As a fan of the show who was not there at the very beginning, it was quite the shock to go back and watch the first few stories. The Doctor I'd first met (if you read an earlier post - you'd know it was Tom Baker) was a high-principled being who always fought for what's right. But this is not the Doctor we're seeing at the opening of the Hartnell Era. However, by the time his reign comes to an end, the morals we see him upholding for the rest of the show are firmly in place. So let's see where those turning points occur.

While we don't see the Doctor partaking in anything particularly malicious in his fourth adventure - he also doesn't seem to be portraying any firm moral backbone, either. He just wants to get his TARDIS back from Marco Polo and move on. Any decisions he makes that may have an influence on the cause and effect of the situation come from a largely selfish motive. Essentially, the Doctor is not doing anything particularly "bad" in this story - but he isn't doing anything particularly good, either.
The Keys Of Marinus, to all intents and purposes, is the first occasion where we see any real development in the moral code of the Doctor. At first, he still seems pretty ambiguous in his ethics. The Conscience of Marinus is usually the type of computer that he would express considerable outrage against. But, in his initial appraisal, he seems almost impressed with a device that is capable of controlling the minds of others. He also only offers his help to Arbitan because, like Marco Polo, he has cut him off from his TARDIS. So there's still no real sense of a Doctor who wants to do good.

It is only as he re-joins the party at Millenius that we first see a real sense of that heart of gold shining through. Ian has been accused of a crime he hasn't committed and will be sentenced to death if he's found guilty. Who comes forward to represent him pro bono? The Doctor, himself! If we look at the way he was during An Unearthly Child, he should not care one bit about Ian's problem. It's his own predicament. Perhaps, after Susan argued on the schoolteacher's behalf, her grandfather might decide to help him. But that's not what we see. The Doctor is more than willing to represent Ian at his trial. He not only wants to help his friend - he needs to see that justice is properly served. This is the first real sense of right or wrong that the Time Lord seems to be exhibiting. It's further re-enforced as he makes a pronouncement at the end of the story that the Conscience of Marinus is wrong. That people should be allowed to think for themselves'.

That trial at Millenius will also be discussed in our Second Stream. We will see some external influence having a bearing on how his attitude changes. But, for the most part, this first sign of the Doctor's morals seems to be more of an internal choice. He's just decided that it's time to start taking sides. To start standing up for certain principles.

STAYING UNINVOLVED

While he is starting to develop a moral compass, there is still a strong impulse that stops the Doctor from acting too much on anything he believes in. As a time traveler, the Early Days First Doctor emphasizes most heavily the importance to never damage the Web of Time by getting too involved in things. In his eleventh body, he delivers a speech to Amy at the beginning of The Beast Below that delves into this philosophy quite heavily. He very quickly shows, however, that he doesn't truly follow this ideology. All it takes is a crying girl for him to leap in and start trying to influence things for the better. But back in his first incarnation, it's a concept he adheres to with an almost white-knuckled conviction.

He presents this argument most strongly in his next story. There is much about Aztec culture that a modern day Doctor would deeply object to. Even the First Doctor seems to find this culture's love of torture, war and religiously-justified murder repugnant. But he insists to Barbara that they must allow these people to conduct themselves' in the ways they see fit. His famous "You can't re-write history - not one line!" speech is delivered, here. And it seems to almost be a mantra that he continues to follow for several more stories. Even in The Sensorites, the help he offers to the telepathic aliens is much like the involvement he has with Marinus and Marco Polo - he's doing it only to get his TARDIS back. In stories like The Reign of Terror, Planet of Giants and even Dalek Invasion of Earth, the plot is more about a TARDIS crew that's caught in a nasty situation and is just trying to get out - rather than a group of people that have arrived at a place where an evil is at work that they feel they must fight it.

However, we do observe the Doctor showing some desire to see justice served. While Planet of Giants is still mainly about the TARDIS crew trying to restore themselves' to normal size, the Doctor does want to report to the proper authorities that a man has been murdered. We see this need for justice grow even stronger in the next story. The return of the Daleks would probably represent the first real external influence in propelling the Doctor's moral impetus. He knows these creatures are nothing but evil and he takes a very strong stance against them. Particularly at the beginning of Episode Two. Strongly disputing the Daleks' claim of being "the Masters of Earth" is not the smartest thing one should do against such a hot-tempered species, but the Doctor's sense of right and wrong has become too pronounced. He must vocalize his contrary stance. In so doing, he is also showing his first real sense of moral backbone. He's going to get involved and try to change things for the better. It's a fairly pivotal moment for him that is prompted purely by the fact that these creatures are evil and must be stopped. For once, it's not an internal force compelling him - but circumstances outside of him.

We see one more key element of the Doctor's integrity shine through in this tale. As the Doctor and Susan take to the sewers with David Campbell, they run back into Tyler. A short while later, they also run into two Robomen. One is killed, the other disabled. As Tyler aims his pistol to dispatch the unconscious Dalek servant, the Doctor stops him. "I only take life when it directly threatens mine", he declares. That wasn't the case at the beginning of the show. He has most definitely grown in his attitude. He has also developed one of the most important elements in his core philosophy: the need to preserve life at all costs. It's almost a throwaway moment in Dalek Invasion of Earth, but it's a sequence that displays a key point in the Doctor's moral growth.

Ultimately, though, we could argue that a lot of what the Doctor does in this story is still just a course of action that will enable him to eventually unearth his buried TARDIS. There is still some selfish intent, there - it's not purely an act of good. As we move on to The Rescue there's little opportunity for him to really act out of a moral motivation. Koquillon/Bennet is a nasty fellow - but the fight he takes up against him is more a struggle for self-preservation than it is an attempt to see justice served. Still, the confrontation in the council chamber of Dido shows a Doctor who is standing up to a villain and calling him out on the carpet. It's a step in the right direction...

THE ROMANS - FAR MORE PIVOTAL THAN YOU WOULD EXPECT

Who would've thought that such a goofy little farce would be such a vital turning point for the Doctor's ethics? But as he and Vicky are on the road to Rome, they find the body of Maximus Pettulian. When the Doctor is mistaken for him, he decides to assume the role. He and Vicki become embroiled in politics at Nero's royal court.

And why does he do this? Well, there may be several reasons. But the one he explicitly states to Vicki is a desire to see justice served over the murder of Maximus Pettulian's death. There is probably also a bit of an interest in being able to get so close to a famous historical figure. But still, this is the first time we see the Doctor want to do something good without any real personal reward at stake. This isn't like The Keys of Marinus or The Sensorites, where he's lending a hand to regain access to his TARDIS. Or Dalek Invasion of Earth where he's fighting an evil monster who is, at the same time, posing a threat to his own personal safety. He's really quite selfless, here.

While his companions have, no doubt, been influencing him to become more and more humane - this still seems to be a decision drawn mainly by internal motives and not external influences. The Doctor has just decided to become a better person. To do good wherever he goes.

He also revokes his credo to never get involved in a pretty big way. In stories like The Aztecs and The Reign of Terror he is doing his damnedest to stay out of history's path. Here, he becomes partially responsible for one of the most famous disasters in human history.

It is in The Romans that we see the first seeds truly planted that will eventually grow into the Doctor we see nowadays: a man who always gets involved and tries to bring about positive change wherever he goes.


THE NEXT TURNING POINT

Perhaps the burning of Rome set a bit of a scare into the Doctor and he relapses for a bit. In Historicals like The Crusade, he reverts back to just being a man who is merely trying to survive during a turbulent time in the past. He does not attempt to influence things for the better. In stories like The Web Planet, The Space Museum and The Chase, any good he does is for the sake of looking after his own needs and/or safety.

It is only as we reach the end of Season 2 that we see him acting, once more, from a non-selfish standpoint. Another wrong must be righted and he doesn't care what good it might do for him. It just needs to be fought.

This time, it seems like an external influence that's motivating him. But it's not the guidance of a good friend. But, rather, the machinations of one of his own people. The latest evil that the Doctor feels he must stamp out is a plot by the Monk to change history. More than likely, the Doctor's own sense of obligation to see that the Web of Time isn't damaged is what gets him to start getting involved, again. But, after several stories of remaining on the sidelines and only effecting change if it benefits him, he needed something major to break the habit.

As Season Two wraps up, the Doctor's morals are becoming a major part of who he is.


IN PRAISE OF THE DALEKS

Galaxy Four sees a Doctor who is acting mainly under threat, but we still see him take great personal risk to ensure that Rills can launch their ship before the planet is destroyed. Mythmakers doesn't give much opportunity for him to show off his ethics, but he does become involved in another pivotal historical moment -  he comes up with the idea for the Trojan Horse.

Dalek Masterplan, however, really puts the Doctor's moral streak to the forefront. Just as they did on Earth in the 22nd Century, the Daleks' plans for conquest galvanize the Doctor's ethics. But, whereas he merely told off the Daleks in Dalek Invasion of Earth, this time he openly fights them. In Episode Two, he willingly disguises himself as Zephron and becomes embroiled in a protracted counterplot against the Daleks' Time Destructor Project. He could've looked for a way out and left things to Bret Vyon. That might have been something he would've done back at the beginning of Season 1. But that's not the Doctor, anymore. Now, he's a man who steps in and gets involved. When Bret praises him for his courage - he even shrugs it off.

The Doctor's desire to always do what's right has become so deeply ingrained that he's, now, willing to sacrifice himself to accomplish it. In the final episode of Dalek Masterplan, he's ready to die as he activates the Time Destructor and carries it off. We see the Doctor's morality come to full bloom, here. He is now willing to die for his beliefs.

Onwards from this 12-part Dalek Epic, he is the Doctor we currently know and love. His courage and moral fortitude are the very core of who he is. And if he needs to become involved to make a difference - he will do so. Oddly enough, he should be thankful to the Daleks. They are the ones chiefly responsible to turning him into the man he is.

THE ROAD TO REGENERATION

Aside from a bit of caution that he reluctantly shows in The Massacre, the Doctor continues to seek justice wherever he goes. He fights the oppression of the Monoids, the Elders and WOTAN. He even interferes in history a bit during The Gunfighters. He does actually try to plead for peace among the participants of the gunfight at the OK Corral. It's an event that he knows must happen but he still tries to apply his morals to the situation. If only Barbara had been around to see it!

After a quick little runaround of little consequence on the 17th Century Cornish Coast, we arrive at The Tenth Planet. Many fans complain of the Doctor not being more involved in the story. That he should've had a greater role to play in the defeat of the Cybermen. But from the point of tracking his moral compass, this is an excellent final story for Doctor One.

While he may not have done much to make a difference, the Doctor's ethics are proudly on display in this story. Understanding that Mondas has returned to Earth, he very quickly asserts himself into a position of influence to help with the battle.  There is no hesitancy to become involved - he must help Earth in its time of need. As the Cybermen arrive in Episode Two, the Doctor stands up to them and berates them constantly for their deplorable behavior. It's the best he can do under the circumstances - but it's beautiful to watch. He is a man who can no longer ignore his conscience and must always speak out in the name of righteousness. Even when surrounded by enemies that could easily kill him, he's not afraid to stand up and be heard.

It is true, he doesn't do much to tip the scales in The Tenth Planet. But he's won a much bigger fight in this story. He's defeated his own sense of indifference.

He has truly become the Doctor.



So, that's Stream 1 clearly charted. When we re-join the Progressive Doctors Series, we'll look at the development of a character trait that we also watched grow in Doctor Twelve. The "softening" of the character. Moments where the First Doctor became less and less abrasive and learnt to actually bond with the people around him. It was quite the process for Capaldi's Doctor - it's an even bigger journey for Hartnell. 

Stay tuned... 


(Just in case you want to read the Twelfth Doctor Essay and are too lazy to scroll up to the top of the page, here's that link again):

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/02/analytical-progressive-doctors-part-1.html

FIRST ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: SOMETHING A LITTLE PERSONAL....

Happy Anniversary Pretentious Doctor Who Essays! To celebrate, I'm offering something that does not fit into any of my specific categories of study. I'm actually just going to share a bit of myself with you. 

A few years back, my friend Jeff Peeling (who knows his Doctor Who almost as well as I do) was putting together a fanzine. Knowing that I'm a bit of a writer, he asked if I'd be willing to put together a column that would introduce the show's format to someone who had never watched a single second of it. I hummed and hawed and tried to wrangle a better artist fee out of him. But, eventually, I came up with this: my own personal journey of how I discovered the show. 

I've made a few tweaks to the piece since I first submitted it to Jeff. I've mainly just updated a few factoids that I put down (ie: number of years that had past since the show first premiered). But it's, more or less, as it first appeared when I wrote it half-a-dozen years ago. And it definitely accurately encapsulates what my first experiences with Doctor Who were like...

"WHOCOLOGY 101":  AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GREATEST SHOW EVER!

                                   

                                EPISODE ONE:   DISCOVERING THE DOCTOR

                                                                                                                    

"Write an article that explains Doctor Who to someone who's never seen the show before." the editor asks me. Sounds simple, right?  

But how do you really explain a show that is about to celebrate its 53rd anniversary? That has produced over 30 seasons and 250 stories? A show so old that a good chunk of its earlier episodes have actually been lost?    

            

I suppose I could start back at the show's humble origins and talk about that rainy Saturday afternoon in November way back in 1963. And mention how no one really watched the first episode because JFK had been shot the previous day and they had to re-broadcast it again a week later.   

            

Or I could talk about the show's "heyday" during the 70s. How it became a British institution. An icon in British culture that became as identifiable as hot dogs and baseball is in the United States (or, alternatively, hockey and beer in Canada!).  

            

Or I could talk about the great "Doctor Who comeback story" in 2005. How, after being cancelled for over 15 years (with just the briefest respite in 1996), it exploded back on our screens and created a whole new sensation in the UK and is making a huge splash, once more, in fan culture. To the point where it is now one of the most popular shows in the world.    

            

I could talk about all that (and, in many ways, I just did) but it still wouldn't seem like the right approach to explaining the show. Because none of these stories properly explains my own fascination with this series. None of it justifies the tens of thousands of dollars I have put into DVDs, novels, videotapes, magazines and other fan memorabilia. Or the endless hours I have spent on Doctor Who discussion forums (where I actually first met our illustrious editor) debating ridiculous points of continuity regarding the show's long and complicated history.  Or how there comes that magic moment with every woman I date where I must explain this "quirky habit of mine" to them and hope they don't think I'm so nerdy they will never date me again!

            

No analytical and/or historical dissertation of the show's format could justify the passion that pumps in my veins for this silly little "sci-fi show that could". So, I'll take the personal route, instead:  

            

I'll talk about how I discovered Doctor Who.

IN SEARCH OF A NEW HERO

            

Our story begins in the Spring of '82. I was a boy just entering into adolescence. Growing up in a small Canadian town called Windsor that borders on the much bigger American city of Detroit. With a Dad who had a high-demand skill in the construction industry, it meant that enough income was rolling into our household to afford us all the great 80s luxuries. Ours' was the first house on the block to get a microwave and a VCR. More importantly, we also got the really cool stuff like Atari game systems and Commodore 64 computers!   

            

Life, overall, was pretty good for this cerebral-yet-artistically-bent 12-year-old. But there was still just one problem in his life:  

            

Young Rob Tymec was looking for a hero.  

            

Well, he had a few heroes already, of course. They were the usual suspects, though. His hard-working father. A cool uncle. A teacher who had really encouraged him with his writing. I'd even become a pretty big "Rush-nerd", by this point. And being a fan of this Canadian rock band really did mean you had a group of legitimate heroes to admire.    Because they weren't just musicians that had it made it big. They were  a band with some real principles and ideals that you could genuinely respect.   

            

But that still wasn't quite enough heroism for me. I needed a hero who was a bit more fantastical. Someone from the world of fiction. All my other heroes had their flaws. But someone who wasn't real was the perfect person to well and truly idealize. Heroes from fiction always seem to say and do all the right things.  And while I was firmly grounded with all my other heroes in life, I still needed just a touch of "unrealistic expectations" to round out my personality.   

            

I started by investigating the great literary figures that appeal to a young boy. Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan and all the rest. I liked them - but they just weren't quite "cutting it" for me. I'd also checked into pop-culture: Luke Skywalker and Captain Kirk were real cool cats, don't get me wrong.  But there wasn't quite enough there for me to really sink my teeth into.  Oddly enough, all the great comic book heroes weren't really my cup of tea, either. Which is usually where a geeky adolescent boy searching for a hero ends up resolving his quest.   

            

What I needed was someone who could give me what all that these different genres offered - and still something more. Someone who had the romantic and cultural background of Holmes, the daring-do of Skywalker and the raw power of Superman all rolled into one.   

            

And I finally first discovered that combination one Thursday afternoon as I was channel surfing.  

            

A TOUCH OF THE GREENERY

Of course, channel surfing back in the 80s was a lot different from what it is now. There were, maybe, only 20 channels to choose from and the TV I was surfing on didn't even have a remote! But I was still doing the equivalent of what we do now with 900 channels and a remote so big you almost need an armored exo-skeleton to lift it off the coffee table! Something managed to catch my eye as I moved up into the higher UHF range - where one found some of the weird local stations from Detroit that broadcasted the most mixed bag of programming one could imagine.   

            

My attention was suddenly grabbed by a group of little green men. 

            

I mean that quite literally. Channel 62 was showing some weird British show that had a group of men whose skin was totally green. Even their hair was green. They appeared to be savages of some sort as they wore animal skins (also green) and carried spears. They had gathered in this room to put these three "non-green" characters on a weird torture wrack.    One of their torture victims was a man with big "Chewbacca-like" bandoliers strapped across his chest. The second was a pretty woman. The third was this strange man with very curly hair and a ridiculously-long scarf.  I could tell, right away, that this third character was the show's lead. Even if he hadn't been speaking the bulk of the dialogue, you could see - just by the way he carried himself - that he was the main character.     The hero of the story.   

            

Intrigued and, at the same time, a bit amused (I could tell, very quickly, that the show suffered from a very low budget) I continued watching. The strange green natives left our three protagonists to die on the torture wrack. A short while later, our curly-haired hero finds a very clever way to escape their predicament and the three of them race out onto some swampland to confront a rather badly-superimposed giant squid. And then, at the very best part, the show ends. A cliffhanger!  

            

"How interesting," I thought to myself, "I wonder what will happen next."  

            

As I would later find out, I was watching the third episode of the Doctor Who story entitled Power Of Kroll.  But learning that information was a long way down the road for me. I wasn't even a hundred percent sure if I liked what I had just seen. After all, a lot of it did look outrageously cheap. So, even though I was wondering how the man with the crazy afro and scarf and the pretty woman were going to escape the giant puppet squid - I didn't bother to tune in the next day.   

MY DESTINY IS FOUND            

I did, however, bother to tune in a week or two later. I was still curious about this strange show whose ending credits seemed like a trip down a surreal birth canal. So, when I found myself sitting around at home really bored on a Monday afternoon - I decided to tune in again and give this show another try.   

            

This time, I watched it from the beginning. I saw that it was called Doctor Who and that each story had its own title and an episode number of some sort. I found this level of organisation for a TV show interesting and watched intently.   

            

I discovered that Afro-Guy (who was referred to only as "the Doctor" - not "Doctor Who" as the show's title implies) also had this robot dog. But that the dog had broken down and he was trying to fix it in what appeared to be a big white spaceship. His female assistant was also doing something really weird. She was somehow able to change her appearance.     She was actually trying on new bodies until she found one that the both of them liked. But as bizarre as all that was, something even stranger happened a minute or two later. They stepped out of the big white spaceship and onto a location scene. And, although the inside of the ship was quite large, the outside of it was this small blue box that looked a bit like a phone booth. Now that, as far as I was concerned, was really screwed up. But also intensely cool.  What was up with this crazy ship of his?!   I very obviously needed to learn more about how this show worked...      

            

I was watching the first episode of a story called Destiny of the Daleks. Which was a good thing - because as I reached the end of Episode One I got to sample just a hint of the Doctor's greatest foes: those evil menacing salt-shaker-shaped Daleks.  And - just as the show affected British TV audiences way back in 1963 - I, too, became hooked. The menace these horrible robotic-seeming creatures inspired left me thoroughly engaged. For the rest of the week, I made plans to be at home for Doctor Who.  And it was well worth the social sacrifice.

            

As we reached the end of Episode Four I found myself very caught up in the climax of the story.  There had been this great plot revelation that these strange "Stevie Wonder aliens" (as I preferred to call them, at the time) that were figuring prominently in the story were the mortal enemies of the Daleks.  And that the Daleks had unearthed their original creator, Davros, to win the war against them. Davros was, essentially, a guy in a bad latex mask who pushed himself around in what appeared to be a futuristic-looking baby stroller. But as bad as some of these effects were, I was still captivated by everything that was going on.   

            

But I think the way the story resolved was what truly won me over as a fan. At the climax of the tale, the Doctor confronts Davros in his lair. Now, in all the other sci-fi I had watched up to this point in my young life, this meant it was time for a fight scene. Probably not between the Doctor and Davros, themselves', since Davros appeared to be crippled. But there might be some sort of shoot-out with the Doctor and one of these nasty Dalek monsters. Sure enough, a Dalek coasts out from the shadows at just the right moment to stop the Doctor from foiling Davros' plans.  

            

"All right," I think to myself, "now this Doctor guy's gonna find a gun in the room and take this nasty Dalek out once and for all!"

            

Even at Twelve, I knew how the format worked. It was time for the gunfight at the OK Corral (I would learn later on, of course, that the Doctor had been part of that event, too!). I was slightly dreading the moment because other fight sequences on the show had not been that well-executed. But still, I figured the whole drama of the moment might get me to look past the shoddy visuals.  

SOMETHING TO HANG YOUR HAT ON

            

And that's when something totally unexpected happened. The Doctor didn't find a gun to fight the Dalek with. In fact, he just started playing with his hat. Which struck me as rather odd. This was no time to be fiddling with your hat! Damn it, Doc, find that convenient weapon and shoot that Dalek down. Time's-a-wasting! But still, he just kept chatting with Davros and hat-fondling.    

            

And then, suddenly, something really cool happened. Cooler than the weird robot dog I had caught a glimpse of. Cooler than the spaceship whose inside was bigger than the outside.    Even cooler than the "Exterminate!" warcry of the evil Daleks. The Doctor took that hat he was so pre-occupied with and threw it over the eyestalk of the Dalek that was holding him prisoner. Thus rendering it temporarily blind. And in that moment of distraction - he finds a way to destroy the Dalek and stop Davros' sinister scheme.       

            

Why was this so incredibly cool to me? Because the show had done something that was totally against the established format of sci-fi adventure. The Doctor didn't find a phaser or whip out a lightsaber or anything bog-standard-yet-pleasingly-violent like that. Instead, he'd come up with a clever and creative improvisation to save the day. Essentially, he'd chosen brains over brawn. But had done it all with great style and panache.  

            

And in that very moment, I knew I'd found my new hero.  

            

This was the type of man-of-action that I could get behind. Sure, there had been other mad-scientist-type heroic characters that I'd encountered in other sci-fi stories - but they had seemed largely useless. They would berate the action hero for his brashness, but they still had to admit that if he hadn't thumped the nasty alien when he had, everything would have come to ruin. But the Doctor not only chose to rely on his wits and intelligence more than his fighting skills - he actually found useful ways of employing that ideology. And he did it all with such charming eccentricity that you couldn't help but love the guy. To this day, I still smile as the Dalek he blinded in Destiny of the Daleks explodes and all the Doctor can do is respond with a horrified:  "My hat!".        

Fantastic stuff!   

            

Now, I could still spend a few paragraphs explaining all these weird questions those first few episodes had raised in me as I watched them. And, in so doing, I could teach you all about the complex and mysterious legends surrounding the Doctor's origins. But that's for another article, perhaps. All you really need to know about Doctor Who has just been accounted for in what I've just written.

            

But, just in case you didn't quite get it all, let me summarise:        

            

Basically, the Doctor will always stand up against evil. But he will do his best to do so without sinking to Evil's own level. He will fight with creativity and brilliance rather than fists and weapons. And he will get the job done with a very definite sense of style. Anything else beyond these basic facts, to be quite honest, is largely irrelevant.       

            

Why is Doctor Who so great?  Because the show embodies the truest sense of heroism.    And that idea rings as true for this man in his mid Forties as it did for that boy of Twelve.    

              

           

               

Did we enjoy this little personal diversion? If so, I have written a few more installments. Perhaps, on some other special occasion, I'll post another episode. 

Let me know what you think in the comments section. If you'd rather not hear anymore about my sad life as a nerdy teenager, I can stick to the pretentious essays.   

      

                  

FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES: THE DOCTOR'S AGE - PART 2

And so, we embark on the second installment of: "What is up with the Doctor's age?!". We looked at the issue of Age Gaps in the Classic Series, first. We sorted out where the Doctor may have gained a few centuries here and there as he went from 450 to almost a 1000. Now we're going to tackle some discrepancies regarding his age in the New Series.  


PART 2 - HOW DID THE DOCTOR LOSE A FEW CENTURIES?

Before we get to that Big Question, let's look at some other age gaps that occur in the New Series. Some of it's pretty straightforward, of course. Particularly in the 11th Doctor's Era. But there are a few other spots that bear closer scrutiny...

NEW SERIES AGE GAPS

It's likely that another significant age gap occurs between Survival and The 96 Telemovie. The Doctor's age isn't explicitly stated but there is a 900-year-old diary in the TARDIS (his previous diary only spanned 500 years). Doctor Seven also looks a bit older and there's been a few radical changes to his costume. We saw something similar happen between Seasons 17 and 18 so this leads me to believe that several decades have probably passed between Ace and Seven parting ways and the Doctor going to Skaro to collect the Master's remains. By the time we witness the opening scene in the Mega Jules Vernes Console Room, the Doctor is probably a little past 1000 years old.

Just to create a bit of context for that even bigger age issue, I'm going to say this is roughly where the Big Lie starts happening. Remember this for later...

Of course, as the New Series starts, the Doctor appears to be freshly regenerated into his ninth body. He's claiming to only be 900. To all intents and purposes, he only appears to live for a year before he regenerates again. Doctor Ten also seems to have a pretty short lifespan. The "each season represents a year" rule seems to be still in effect. Until we get to the Specials of 2009 where it appears as though he traveled alone in his "10b body" for 2 or 3 years and then regenerates at the age of 906.

And then we reach Eleven. Mister Moffat is nice enough to give us an incarnation with a longer lifespan and some fairly obvious age gaps. The first one we'll look at is prominently displayed in The Impossible Astronaut where he invites himself to his own death. We see a gap of 909 to 1103. Almost 200 years there (even double-checked my math on that one!). We should point out that the age gap, technically, happens between God Complex and Closing Time. After dropping off Rory and Amy, he travels by himself for a bit before finally facing his fate in The Wedding of River Song.

Of course, we should also factor in another really minor gap. He states his age as 906 in The End of Time - Part 2 but claims to be 909 by Impossible Astronaut. That's only a season that's passed but he's gained three years. So let's assume he took Rory and Amy for a nice honeymoon spin during A Christmas Carol but then brought them back home shortly thereafter. He still stops in intermittently between the 2010 Christmas Special and the beginning of Series 6 (which seems to be the general indication the first time we see Amy and Rory as the season opens). When he does pop in, he only takes the Ponds travelling for short periods of time. He is bringing them back to their normal lives after only a month or two in the TARDIS. In between his visits to Rory and Amy, he travels by himself for quite a while. Cumulatively, that travelling alone adds up to nearly 3 years.

The next super-obvious Age Gap is in Time of the Doctor where he puts on a good 700 years at the bare minimum. Possibly more. Throughout the course of the story, he does a similar trick to Clara that he did to Rose in Bad Wolf. Like Rose, Clara keeps finding her way back to him. But each time she returns, he's put on a few more centuries. 

But just before that giant easy-to-spot age gap there is, once more, a less noticeable one. When River "assassinates" him - he claims to be 1103. When the War Doctor confronts him in Day of the Doctor, he says he's "Twelve Hundred and something...". So, another century and some change has passed sometime between those adventures.

I would suggest that the dynamic we saw at the beginning of Series 6 happens again through the first half of Series 7. The Doctor takes Rory and Amy travelling with him for a few months, then travels on his own for a while. Then picks them back up again for some time - then travels by himself again. So, in between Asylum of the Daleks, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, A Town Called Mercy, Power of Three and Angels Take Manhatten the Doctor puts on a bunch of years travelling without companions.  

Since Doctor Twelve took over, there seems to be no indication of age gaps. It's difficult to tell since he's not really stating a specific number of years that he's at. He's just been saying that he's 2 000 years old. 

Okay, New Series age gaps sorted out. Let's finally address the proverbial Elephant on the Table. 


GOING BACK TO 900 

Fandom went through a fair amount of shock when Doctor Nine claims to be only 900 years old in Aliens of London. It made no sense to me, of course. I remembered the Doctor saying he was 953 in Time and the Rani. By my reckoning, the Ninth Doctor should be much older. Even if the Eighth Doctor was a "shorter" incarnation (which is entirely possible since, at that time, we believed he was the one who fought in the Time Wars), Doctor Nine should still be somewhere around 1020. 

Of course, things get even more confusing as we witness the glorious 50th anniversary celebration and the War Doctor claims he's about 400 years younger than the Eleventh. This would put him in his 800s.  How did he revert to the age he was during his fifth incarnation?

There are two principal schools of thought surrounding this controversy. The first is that the Doctor has either become confused about his age or is flat-out lying (or a combination of the two). This certainly seems feasible. Particularly the idea that he loses count, sometimes. The fight between the Doctor and Romana in Ribos Operation supports this. But the fact that the Doctor is taking on young-looking bodies more and more frequently as he gets older might also indicate some vanity is at play, too. Still, it can be a bit of a stretch. Losing three years like he did in Ribos is believeable. Could he really forget about a century or so? Or can he really be that vain?

The second popular theory is that the Time Wars, somehow, messed up his personal timeline and he's actually lost a part of his life. Some believe that, since the Time Wars, Gallifrey has been retro-actively removed from the Universe. Which means all the years that the Doctor lived on Gallifrey during his youth no longer exist. Depending on when you think the Doctor left his home planet, this would account for two to four centuries of his life. Perhaps the Eighth and War Doctors both lived for a few centuries, each. So, by the end of the Time Wars, he's around 1100 to 1300 years old. But then, he loses the years he spent growing up on Gallifrey and this bumps him back to 900. Of course, this theory becomes a bit more tenuous now that we've learnt that Gallifrey wasn't truly destroyed during the war. But it's still feasible.  Perhaps a weapon was used on the Doctor that erased his personal timeline. So Gallifrey still exists - but his time spent on it was, technically, removed from his life. This seems just as likely as him fibbing or forgetting about his age. 


THE TYMECIAN THEORY

Okay, those are your two principal schools of thought on the matter. Where do I sit? Well, as usual, I've created a hybrid of the two.

The line of dialogue that I love to jump on is in The Empty Child: "900 years of travel in a phone box!", the Doctor grumbles after Rose goes missing, "You think I'd finally pick someone who listens!" (or words to that effect) He doesn't say he's 900 years old, that time. But rather, he states he's been travelling 900 years. We should also note that he's alone when he's admitting it.

So, here's what I'm thinking happened:  

We're in the Wilderness Years. The Seventh Doctor is travelling around after Survival. Ace is gone. Maybe he's had another companion or two. But he's alone, now. His thousandth birthday is nearly upon him. This might be the Time Lord equivalent of turning 40. It's really eating away at the Doctor. He's sure people will think he's ancient if he admits his true age. 

So the Doctor makes a decision. From hereon in, he's not going to count the time he spent on Gallifrey as part of his age. Just the time he spent travelling in the TARDIS. That will shave off a few centuries and let him feel young again for a while.

So, how long did the Doctor live on Gallifrey before he flew off on his adventures? Romana makes a claim in Ribos Operation but I say she was wrong and the Doctor just couldn't be bothered to correct her (there were far more pressing things to argue about, at the time). Judging by how the Doctor looks in the flashback sequence in Name of the Doctor and how he and Susan seem to be acting, in general, during Season 1, I'd say he was around 440 when he left Gallifrey. It seems to me that he was only travelling for a handful of years before he ran into Ian and Barbara. So, let's say he was about 445 when Unearthly Child begins. This way, his claim to be about 450 when Season 5 begins lines up fairly well.

As Doctor Seven is travelling alone between Survival and The 96 Telemovie, he cuts out 440 years of his life. Suddenly, he's 560 again. That's what he keeps telling everyone, at least, whenever he sites his age. When we finally reach Rose, the Doctor is saying he's 900. It's a lie, of course. But no one would know it. He's been maintaining this illusion for a good 340 years, now.

Within four or five years after he starts perpetuating the lie about his age, the Doctor goes through another regeneration. We see some more of his vanity kicking in. Doctor Eight is quite young and handsome. And more-than-happy to claim that he's only about 565 years old. I'd estimate that his eighth incarnation lasts a good 35 years or so before he makes the fateful decision on Karn to become the Doctor of War.

We see from the reflection on the wall at the end of Night of the Doctor, that this new incarnation is pretty young-looking, too. As we reach Day of the Doctor, he's looking a fair amount older. That's why I want to give this particular incarnation a good 300 years of existence (those Time Wars waged on for quite some time - they may have even had a special timestream of their own). From what we've seen of Time of the Doctor, 300 years still shouldn't be quite enough to look so much older but I'm going to say that the stress of constantly being in battle sped up his aging process.

So, now, as Doctor Eleven states he's "Twelve Hundred and something" - the War Doctor assumes it's the upper 1200s and the age difference of 400 years makes sense. He's probably around 895 or more, at that point. He regenerates at the end of the 50th anniversary tale and may even decide to just round things up to 900 as he steps into his ninth body. 1000 doesn't seem so scary anymore and he can deal with it. Just to help compensate a bit, his next few bodies after his ninth are nice and young-looking, again.

By his twelfth incarnation, the Doctor has grown comfortable with being old. So he regenerates into an older form again and has no problem admitting that he's 2000. But, in truth, he's actually closer to 2400. But it's been so long that he's been denying those three-hundred-and-some-change extra years that he doesn't even remember that he's lying about his age, anymore.

It would be awesome, of course, if we got a snippet of dialogue at some point in a future episode where the Doctor finally admits to his lie and starts putting himself at around 2400 when he states his age.

A fanboy can dream....


EPILOGUE: WHAT ABOUT HEAVEN SENT?

All right, everything regarding the discrepancies of the Doctor's aging process appears to be covered. Both in Classic and New Series.

But wait! There is one last issue we should probably talk about:

In the frankly phenomenal Heaven Sent, we learn that the Doctor spent about 4.5 billion years trapped in his confession dial. Re-setting his life over and over through a teleporter until he could smash his way through a harder-than-diamond wall and escape. It was a beautiful and awe-inspiring story. But does this mean that the Doctor is over four-and-a-half billion years old, now?

Moff was nice enough to address this in his column in a recent issue of Doctor Who Magazine. I'm in agreement with how he sees it.

Basically, because the Doctor is constantly re-setting his life with the teleporter, he's only truly aged the amount of time he's spent in the confession dial since the last time he re-set himself and the moment he smashes his way through the wall and escapes onto Gallifrey. That very last cycle he spends is the only real aging he's actually done. Yes, he's lived that cycle over and over for several billion years but, because he's being reborn each time, the last cycle is the only one that really counts.

According to Moff, that last cycle was only a matter of weeks. Or, a few months, at best. So the Doctor is still only at 2000 or so when he emerges from the confession dial onto the surface of Gallifrey. Not 4.5 billion years.




Okay, I think that's all, now. Any problem regarding the Doctor's aging process seems to have been addressed. No doubt, when some new episodes get made, more issues will present themselves'. Which is good. It'll give me new material to write.






Missed Part One? Here it is: 

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2016/03/fixing-continuity-glitches-doctors-age.html

FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES - THE DOCTOR'S AGE - PART 1

Okay, this is a big one. Possibly one of the biggest continuity glitches in the whole history of the show. Proper dating of UNIT stories is about the only thing that comes close to the magnitude of this problem. 

PART ONE - PRESENTING THE PROBLEM....

Let's start with the backstory:

TIMES WHEN THE DOCTOR HAS EXPLICITLY STATED HIS AGE

The first time the Doctor ever reveals his age is in the story Tomb of the Cybermen. He claims, much to the dismay of Jamie and Victoria, that he's somewhere around 450 years old.

The next time we get a solid admission of age is from the Fourth Doctor. Now he's putting himself at around 750. At one point, there are some slight discrepancies that Romana actually calls him out on, but we'll say he's somewhere around that age.

There is some nonsense about the Third Doctor being several thousand years old - disregard it. He's speaking figuratively. He claims to have several thousand years' worth of experience - which could easily be taken as the span of years that he's traveled through time (ie: he's gone back to the caveman era and gone so far forward in time that he's seen the Earth perish - that's thousands of years). At least, that's how I take it.

The Sixth Doctor says he's a Nine-Hundred-year old Time Lord when he's visiting the planet of Necros and re-states that in Trial of a Time Lord. He's pretty vague about it so we don't know if he means he's precisely 900 or just somewhere around that mark.

The very last time the Doctor mentions his age in the Classic Series is fresh after his sixth regeneration in Time and the Rani. He claims to be 953. You can't get more precise than that.

Things start getting wonky, now. During Day of the Doctor, we meet the War Doctor who asks the Eleventh Doctor how old he is. Doctor Eleven says he's "Twelve Hundred and Something." The War Doctor states that his eleventh incarnation is four hundred years older than him. So ... wait .... that puts the War Doctor at about 800 and something. The War Doctor is two incarnations after the Seventh. How did that happen?

It gets worse as we run into Doctor Nine, of course. He's claiming in Aliens of London that he's only 900 years old. Doctor Ten puts himself at 903 during his big speech in Voyage of the Damned and says he's 906 just before he regenerates into his eleventh form (well, technically, it's his thirteenth - but let's not go there!).

Thus far, Doctor Eleven appears to be the longest-living incarnation. The two different versions of him that we see in Impossible Astronaut show a difference of nearly two centuries. He's 909 when he receives the invitation from himself. And then 1103 when River "kills" him. As previously stated, he's twelve hundred and a bit by Day of the Doctor. Then we finally get to Trenzalore - a planet he probably defended for a good 800 years or so. This is validated when Doctor Twelve (who is really the fourteenth Incarnation - but, really, we must stop going here!) is claiming in Deep Breath to be over 2 000 years old.

AGE GAPS

Before we try to solve this conundrum of the Doctor, somehow, aging backwards - there's another issue we need to look at. Doctor Who, the TV Series, is over 50 years old. Which is a wonderful thing, of course. But within the span of those 50 years, we've seen the Doctor age a good 1500 years or so. Most fans seem to see a season of the show as representing about a year of the Doctor's life. With that logic, however, that would mean that the show should be 1500 years old.

Obviously, there are periods of the show where we aren't witnessing the Doctor's adventures and a score of years pass. Age Gaps - as I like to call them. These Age Gaps have to happen during times when the Doctor isn't travelling with companions. A Time Lord's metabolism is obviously much slower than ours. So he can age a good fifty to a hundred years and barely show it. But if such times were to occur in a human's life, we would definitely see a change in their appearance. So times when the Doctor is travelling alone would constitute the best periods for age gaps. However, times when the Doctor is travelling with a non-human could also work well. Whether it's an alien or a robot companion. An alien that he's travelling with could also have a slower aging process. So a score of years might not show on them. And, provided a robot is well-maintained, we won't see the effects of passing time on them, either.

So, with that in mind, let's see if we can find age gaps to fit the timescale we've been seeing the Doctor move through.

CLASSIC SERIES AGE GAPS

The first big gap we need to fill is 450 to 750 between Doctors Two to Four. If you subscribe to the idea of Series 6b, then we can say that the Second Doctor spent a good century or so doing secret missions for the CIA before being re-captured and sentenced to a proper exile. A good chunk of that travelling was done alone. But then he eventually decides to pick up Jamie and Victoria shortly before he's finally caught, again, by the High Council (going and getting Jamie might have been what gets him detected - perhaps the Time Lords were keeping an eye on Jamie for a bit after returning him to his Time Zone to ensure that he'd settled back into things, properly). Still, several years do get spent with Jamie and Victoria before the Doctor is called to justice by his people. Which would account for why both the Doctor and Jamie look considerably older in The Two Doctors. So, let's say a good 150 years elapse between The War Games and Spearhead From Space.

The next workable age gap would be between The Green Death and The Time Warrior. The Doctor, saddened by the loss of Jo, purposely steers clear of Earth for a bit. He spends a good half-century on his own. Or maybe he does travel with a few more companions but we never see them. It may also be possible that he does take Jo and Cliff for a honeymoon trip to Karfel. Which would get the events of Timelash to make better sense. Nonetheless, it may seem to the Brigadier and UNIT that it's only been a matter of months since last they saw their Scientific Adviser but, by the Doctor's timeline, it's been about 50 years.

Which now means that when the Fourth Doctor ponderously contemplates his age in Pyramids of Mars, it all makes sense. A good two hundred years have passed since Tomb of the Cybermen and this moment.

The next big gap we need to cover is the 200 years that pass from Fourth Doctor to the Seventh. Based on the idea of the Doctor travelling alone or with alien companions, there are multiple opportunities where this could've happened right in the Tom Baker Era. There's that gap where the Doctor is alone between Deadly Assassin and Face of Evil. Then we have the fact that he is travelling with only K9 between Season 15 and 16 and Romana between Season 16 and 17. Yes, Romana regenerates into Princess Astra's form at the beginning of Season 17, but she may have just been suddenly reminded of how pretty she was after spending a decade or two away from Atrios. Destiny of the Daleks doesn't have to happen immediately after Armageddon Factor.

But the problem with all three of these gaps is the Doctor's age gets stated explicitly several times in and around these periods. In Seeds of Doom, the Doctor says he's 749 (oddly enough, he puts himself at 756 in Brain of Morbius, but as Romana said, herself, he's losing track). As the Doctor and Romana the First are sparring in Ribos Operation, Romana points out that he's now 759. By Power of Kroll, he's saying he's 760.  So a good decade seems to passed within the framework of the first two gaps that we've mentioned. Unfortunately, we still can't add a whole lot more years between Season 16 and 17. Romana and the Doctor both mention their ages quite frequently during the season that Douglas Adams script edited. And, although information about their age seems to get a bit garbled, we're still not seeing anything near the two centuries we're hoping for. At best, it's been a handful of years. Less than a decade.

Our next big oppurtunity happens between Seasons 17 and 18. Again, it's still just the Doctor and Romana so we can gain a century or so without seeing a huge difference in external appearance. Nonetheless, there are a lot of indicators that significant years have elapsed from Horns of Nimon to Leisure Hive. The Doctor seems a bit older and more subdued. There's been some radical changes to his outfit. Even the Universe, itself, seems to have become a bit "slicker". Let's definitely say that we've had a good century-or-so go by.

Except that one bit of dialogue in Leisure Hive seems to negate this. After being aged 500 years in Tachyon Generator, the Doctor claims he must be around 1250. Which would mean he was 750 when he went into the generator. This statement, however, already contradicts his stated age in several stories from the Key to Time season. If he gained 500 years, the Doctor should be saying he's 1260. So let's just say the Doctor's either getting really foggy about his age or really modest. Between losing count and feeling daunted by the fact that he's approaching 900, he's trying to keep his age around 750. In the same way that humans will say they're "29" way after they've passed it. Even by himself, the Doctor perpetuates this lie.

So, by the time he hits his fifth incarnation, our favorite Time Lord is probably in his late 800s. We've got a period between Time Flight and Arc of Infinity where he's only travelling with Nyssa. Another decade or so may have passed during that time. He's alone with Turlough between Resurrection of the Daleks and Planet of Fire so he might have gained another decade there, too. Trakenites and people from Trion probably have both gotten advanced enough to slow their aging process down and extend their lifespans. Yes, the Doctor and Turlough are talking about Tegan and the Daleks at the beginning of Planet of Fire but who's to say that it's a reference to Resurrection? Perhaps, after several years of travelling the Universe they've gone back to Earth to help weed out Dalek duplicates and have met Tegan along the way.

So as the Doctor complains about being a 900-year-old Time Lord feeling like a boy on scrumping spree in Revelation of the Daleks, we can find adequate age gaps during the adventures of Doctors Four and Five to compensate for this claim. Is Doctor Six exactly 900? Probably not. He's probably a bit past it - but not much. Which means we need one more age gap to get his claim to be 953 in Time and the Rani to fit. Which is not difficult. After Ultimate Foe but before he meets Mel (and, subsequently, experiences the events of Terror of the Vervoids), the Doctor has a few decades' worth of unseen adventures. Like the gap between Green Death and Time Warrior, there may have been some companions with him that we never saw. Or he may just be travelling alone.

Okay, aging discrepancies during the Classic Era have been resolved. But there's still that Biggie we need to deal with - how did the Doctor age in reverse between Classic and New Series? Part Two will look into that mystery. 

Stay Tuned....